Zakat according to the People of Shariah, Tariqah and Haqiqah

i) According to the people of shari`ah
According to the people of this group, zakat is obligatory on nine things: camels, cows, sheep and goats, gold, silver, wheat, barley, dates, and dried grapes; it is not obligatory on anything other than these. These nine may be divided in two ways: the first division includes those things for which the zakat is paid on completion of the full year, and the second when this does not apply. Those things for which the elapse of a full year is a condition are the first five commodities (that is, not including the grain crops and fruits), and those things for which the elapse of the year does not apply are the four latter commodities (namely the grains and the fruits).
There are two conditions with respect to those things governed by the elapse of a year, one dependent upon the owner and one dependent upon the commodity itself. The condition dependent upon the owner is of two types, the first being the condition of obligation and the second relative to his liability (daman). The condition of obligation is of two divisions: that the person be a free man (and this applies in the case of all five commodities) and of sound intellect, in all except the cattle which are evaluated; this is so since those who are not of sound or mature mind (such as mad persons or children) are still obliged to pay the zakat on their cattle. The condition of liability (on property or animals owned, rented or held in security or trust) are two in number: that the person be Muslim and that he has the ability to pay the zakat. There are two conditions with respect to the comآ­modities themselves: the elapse of the year and the reaching of the nisab (or prescribed minimum levels at which the zakat is payable.
With respect to those things for which no account is taken of the elapse of the year, then the conditions are two in number, the first being dependent upon the person upon whom the zakat is obligatory and the second dependent upon the commodity itself. As for the condition dependent upon the person, it is only that he be a free person. Zakat on grains is not obligatory, for someone who is not of sound mind, although there is no liability on the wealth of someone who is not of sound mind). As for the condition dependent upon the commodity itself, it is that the full nisab is reached. There are numerous other studies of the laws governing each of these different divisions; we have no need for further explanation of this in a work of this nature; and Allah is more‑Knowing and more Wise.

ii) According to the people of tariqah
The zakat of the people of this group ‑ after the giving of the above‑mentioned zakat ‑ is the obligation upon them to purify the soul from the baseness of miserliness and to cleanse the heart from the filth of meanness. This is indicated in the words of Allah, `And whoever is saved from the greediness of his soul, these it is who are the successful.' He also indicates how this zakat increases the fruits of one's knowledge, realities and gnoses and makes them grow and become full of blessings: `The parable of those who spend their property in the way of Allah is that of a grain growing seven ears with a hundred grains in each ear; and Allah multiplies for whom he pleases.' The meaning of this requires some more explanation: it refers to the spiritual wayfarer who, by removing the qualities of miserliness and meanness and planting in their place the qualities of magnificence and generosآ­ity, obtains other qualities whose branching fruits of gnoses and realities are countless in number, the least of them being deliverance from the baser qualities and blameworthy deeds which cause a person to enter the interior Gehanna. The comparison to the grain and the ear of corn is fitting in that every quality acquired by the spiritual traveler, be it praiseworthy or blameworthy, is also accompanied by other acquired qualities too many to enumerate, indeed, as numerous as the grains in an ear of corn ‑ thus if one grain of corn falls to the ground, many ears of corn are produced, each containing so many grains.
With respect to the zakat of wealth, the following has been said: `The secret of man's duty to pay zakat ‑ over and above the benefit to the country as a whole, to the individual slave and to those in difficulty and need ‑ is that wealth is loved by mankind and mankind has been commanded to love Allah and has been invited to do so with the same intensity. This wealth has been established as a measure of their love and as a test of their sincerity with respect to their claim of love, for any lover spends on the one most beloved to his heart.' It h4s also been said, `The one who gives should be careful not to reproach or be patronizing towards the one who receives.' It is patronizing to look upon yourself as the generous benefactor of the person. The sign of this is that you expect thanks from him, or you feel dislike for him because of his lack of reverence for you, or because of his affection for an enemy of yours ‑ to such an extent that your dislike increases far beyond any feeling of disgust that you may have previously had for the poor person. The reason for this is that you consider yourself more excellent than him. Therefore Allah warns, `Do not make your charity worthless by reproach and injury.' The cure for this is to realize that in fact the poor person is doing a kindness to you in accepting what Allah has made a right for, him from you.
Among the secrets of zakat is that it cleanses the heart and purifies it from miserliness and the degradation of meanness. If, however, you cleanse the heart of these qualities but render it full of conceit and haughtiness and thereby cause harm to others, then it is as if you have not cleansed it of anything; rather you have increased its degradation and impurity ‑ and we seek refuge from Allah from such a state.
Thus the zakat is His means of purification since by it purification is attained; it is as if the zakat is a means of ghusl or greater purification, whereby the major impurities are washed away from the inner dimension of the person concerned. It is for this reason that the Messenger of Allah and the members of his family receive zakat. Indeed it has been reported, `Surely it (zakat) is the filthiest of people's wealth.' Thus if the poor man receives it from you, your purifiآ­cation is the excess received by the poor man from you. Have you not noticed that when you have a vein bled and the blood which you fear will cause you worldly harm flows out, was there not an unnecessary excess of blood within you? Thus that which draws out meanness together with the harm it would cause in the next world is even more of a noxious excess than the blood.
Up to this point we have been considering the matter with respect to the outer realm. If we now consider the matter with respect to the inner, since the people of tariqah do not possess any wealth on which to pay zakat, their zakat is paid by the purification of their selves of blameworthy and despicable characteristics and thereafter by their giving out, in the way of Allah and for His pleasure, that which is most beloved to them, namely the self. This is affirmed by Allah when He says: `By no means shall you attain to righteousness until you spend (benevoآ­lently) out of what you love.' It is evident that the dearest thing to man, indeed to all creatures, is his soul or self; thus it is obligatory for him to give charity in the way of Allah so that he obtains the real purification of zakat and the complete cleansing mentioned above.
This is affirmed in the words of Allah, `And reckon not those who are killed in Allah's way as dead; nay they are alive and are provided sustenance from their Lord; rejoicing in what Allah has given them out of His grace.' The meaning of this ayah is that one should not think that those killed in the way of Allah are non‑existent and without reward; rather the one who has been killed in the realm of form receives in the next world a reward and portion of the Garden, its blessings and palaces, and intimacy and honour with Allah. The one who has been killed in the realm of inner meaning is in a similar situation since he possesses wisdom, knowledge, fine behaviour and courآ­tesy in this world as well as unveilings, witnessings and awareness of the realities of the spiritual domain and the realm of power.
In short, he witnesses the Real in His manifestations on the horizon and in the self, that is, he experiences the highest level of witnessing and he also gains the Garden with its blessings and palaces in the hereafter. Above all this is the arrival at the Beloved and at the ultimate goal and attainment of what no eye has seen, no ear has heard and what the heart of man has never thought of.'
Allah refers to the persons of this station when He says, `Surely those who guard (against evil) shall be in gardens and rivers, in the seat of honour with a most Powerful King' and also his words, `It is not righteousness that you turn your faces to the east and the west, but righteousness is this that one should believe in Allah and the last day and the angels and the Book and the prophets, and give away wealth out of love for Him to the near of kin and the orphans and the needy and the wayfarer and the beggars and for (the emancipation of) the captives and keep up the prayer and pay the poor‑rate;, and the performers of their promise when they make a promise, and the patient in distress and affliction and in time of conflicts ‑ these are true (to themselves) and these are they who guard (against evil).' The above ayah refers to all the persons of this group and in particular defines the nature of' righteousness which is the goal of this station.
Another aspect of this station concerns the fact that zakat, according to the law of the shari`ah, is payable with respect to the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms, the gold and silver belonging to the realm of the mineral, the wheat, barley, dates and dried grapes to the realm of the vegetable, and the camels, goats and sheep to the realm of the animal. The Prophet has said, `For everything there is a zakat; the zakat of the body is obedience.'
Thus every slave who acts in obedience to his Lord, in accordance with what he has been commanded to do, is in effect paying his zakat (and thereby purifying himself in the manner we have mentioned). This is so since the people of Allah and their elite, in their comparison of the macrocosm and the microcosm, remember that the bones in their body are analogous to the realm of the mineral, and that their hair and nails are analogous to the realm of the vegetable, and that their animal self and inner and outer senses are analogous to the realm of the animal. Whoever acts in obedience to his Lord of necessity brings fatigue to his limbs, organs and the other physical components of his body; on investigation, we realize that this fatigue is a kind of zakat. The fruit of fatigue in this world is that one becomes purified of filth and one rises above natural impurities and baseآ­ness of character, in accordance with the words of Allah, `O you who are clothed! Arise and warn, and your Lord do magnify and your garments do purify and uncleanness do shun.' Then the mirror of his heart shines bright such that the lights of the angelic malakut and the traces of the jabarut or realm of power manifest therein; indeed his soul becomes an inhabitant of these two realms ‑ which denote the two realms of the pure intelligآ­ible substances and the purified souls (or as they are also known according to the shari`ah: the realm of the intimate angels, indiآ­cated in the Qur'an as `the sublime abode').
It is for this reason that the Messenger of Allah would always say the following in his supplications: `O Allah, place light in my heart and light in my hearing and light in my sight and light in my flesh and light in my blood and light in my bones and light in front of me and light below . me and light in my grave, O Allah increase me in light and give me light by the truth of Your reality, O most Merciful of the Merciful.' The secret of this prayer is that it removes any darkness, obscurity, impurity and stain from him and gives light, clarity, purity, refinement and courtesy in their place; by means of this prayer he becomes of the people of the malakut and jabarut ‑ by the strength of the spiritual link ‑ and he attains to what the inhabitants of these abodes attain to, namely direct witnessings and unveilings. We have already menآ­tioned this supplication once before; the reader should not imآ­agine that its inclusion here is mere idle repetition, rather it is important as an example of the Prophet's guidance and instrucآ­tion for the rest of his people out of his concern that they should also share such stations. If this were not so, then this supplication would have no meaning, given that the Prophet is infallible and free from all impurities.
The above remarks may also be applied to the three kinds of soul rather than the body and its physical members. Just as there exists in man the three kingdoms on a cosmic level, so there also exists the soul of the mineral realm, the soul of the vegetable realm and the soul of the animal realm. The zakat of these three kingdoms may be extracted of these three souls by the expulsion of the baser and blameworthy qualities of behaviour from each of them and their replacement with the finer attributes of good behaviour. The soul is one reality and multiplies in accordance with contingent phenomena. For every quality the soul acquires there is a corresponding name: by its detachment, it is called the human soul and by its attachment to the body, in the first instance, it is called the plant soul, and in the second, the animal soul, and in the third instance, the selfish soul.
The shari`ah and the Qur'an have described the four souls or selves as self‑accusآ­ing, commanding to evil, the tranquil soul, and the inspired soul. As to the soul which commands to evil, it is referred to in Allah's words: `Surely man's soul is wont command (him to do) evil.' As for the self‑accusing or self‑reproaching soul, it is referred to in His words: `Nay I swear by the day of resurrection; nay I swear by the self‑accusing soul.' As for the inspired self, it is referred to in His words: `And the soul and Him who made it perfect, then He inspired it to understand what is right and wrong for it.' As for the soul at rest it is referred to in His words: `O soul that art rest! Return to your Lord, well pleased (with Him), well pleasing (Him). In the first instance the soul, because of the weakness of its intellectual power and its lack of will to prevent it from doing what is harmful, takes command over the body, its physical forces and the like. If, however, the self‑accusآ­ing soul dominates by the power of they intellect and prevents it from doing what is blameworthy, then it reproaches the soul such that it turns away from what it is engaged in. When this quality of self‑reproach becomes an inherent part of the soul, then the soul becomes inspired, and thus merits inspiration from Allah with regard to its actions and states. In becoming the inspired soul, it becomes aware of the difference between what is good and what is bad, what is beneficial and what is evil. When this quality becomes an integral characteristic of the soul, it thereby witnesses the world of the unseen. In this way it merits a witnessing of its Lord and becomes tranquil and is able to return to its own world. How good is the zakat whose fruit is such a return; and Allah is more Knowing and more Wise.

iii) According to the people of haqiqah
The zakat of this group is established after their fulfillment of the two above‑mentioned types of zakat. Their particular zakat refers to the removal of the awareness of limitation from everything in existence and causing each to arrive at the world of the unrestricted or absolute, such that it becomes purified of the stain of otherness and the impurity of duality. Every imaginable existence is in fact Absolute Existence in a particular state of limitation. The manner in which the limit or restriction is removed from the three realms (of vegetable, mineral and animal) is, in the first instance, by the elevation of each realm above the restriction of composite elements so that it arrives at the purely simple elemenآ­tal state.
In the case of these simple elements, the limitations of this particular state are overcome by removing the restriction of simple individual elements and causing it to arrive at the celestial plane of the heavens and the planetary bodies. The limitations of the latter are removed by releasing it from the restriction of the celestial and planetary and by causing it to reach the universal body of natural forms. The latter is released from the limitation of its corporeality such that it reaches the level of universal substance. The latter is released from its own restriction of subآ­stance by its arrival at the level of universal nature. The latter is released from its restriction of nature and caused to arrive at the level of the simple or pure soul. The latter is released from its spiritual particularity and caused to arrive at the level of the sacred souls and that of the universal souls which is the level of the pure intelligences. From these latter it is caused to arrive at the Presence of Oneness and Absolute Existence or Reality. This releasing from limitation and particularity is the true purifiآ­cation and the universal zakat in relation to every existence from among the existent beings in the realm of the possible.
We have already shown how the perfection of the mineral is its arrival at the realm of the vegetable, and the perfection of the vegetable is its arrival at the station of the animal, and the perfection of the animal is its arrival at the station of man, and the perfection of man is his arrival, in the first instance, at the station of the earthly realm (mulk) and then to that of the divine caliphate, and then to the station of pure creation. This is a kind of zakat in that it purifies man and indeed all existent beings of the impurity of limitation and the stain of specificity which, as we have seen, is a kind of hidden shirk. It is this that is the true zakat and the true goal, since there is no other kind of purification which is greater than this. Purification of the existent beings from the restriction of limitation and contingent phenomena is the greatest and sublimest of purifications; indeed it is the ultiآ­mate purpose of Allah's imposition of zakat on His slaves. We ask Allah to give us success in arriving at this station of zakat and similar stations; He it is from Whom the slaves seek help and on Whom they rely.